Quick-summary of what Ultimate VFX is:Ultimate VFX (“UVFX”) is a huge collection of particle system prefabs built primarily using Unity’s native Shuriken editor. You can freely tweak everything! In addition to that, it includes several custom components (“plexus”, force affectors) that allow you to do more. A lot more - even on mobile!
If you have any questions, please don’t hestitate to ask.
Note: all promotional images and videos use the Post-Processing Stack and Global Fog image effect (previously included in the Standard Assets package) by Unity. If you’d like, you can simply import the following package which has both to get a similar look for the demo scenes: > Post-Processing Stack + Global Fog (Google Drive) Video showing a FRESH install on Unity 2019 LTS…
Check out this APK of a simple interactive demo to stress test the custom components on mobile platforms (Android) - tested on a Samsung Galaxy S5:
v2.6+ features over 300 UNIQUE prefabs using 200+ULTRA HI-REStextures and spritesheets (up to 8k).
I started working on this asset package that serves as my personal go-to solution for a variety of effects. Before starting out with Unity, I was used to programming from scratch using just OpenGL and C++, including my own rendering framework and particle systems.
One of the first things I played with in Unity was the built-in Shuriken particle system, and ever since then I’ve been totally addicted.
I’m very much inspired by effects in games like Final Fantasy (VII, VIII, X, X-2) and Kingdom Hearts (1 & 2). So you may recognize a few of the prefabs names in the package.
I saw this months ago when it first came out. Visually, this is very nice!
On a practical level, I’m trying to think of how I can use this in my game, and I’m really not sure. What stands out to me as the most useful is the atom effect, and possibly some of the cloudiness.
I wish you luck with this. If I recall correctly, there’s a HUGE difference between the way this looked in the initial version and the way it looks today. The first looked reasonably good, but this new one is very well done.
When I first released this I put together some of the assets I had lying around from past projects. With time, I’ve had a chance to use this in newer games I’ve worked on and refine the library based on needs.
My intention with this asset was to make a very well-rounded solution for all sorts of effects in games. The included effects are meant to show off the potential and large variety of effects that can be created, and are more complex than what you would typically use for a single instance in a practical application of the set.
This has the advantage that you can drag prefabs that remotely resemble the sort of effect you’re going for, then drag out individual systems from within their hierarchies to make the exact effect you want.
But this is why I absolutely love it when I get requests to create/analyze specific effects from examples (either existing games or just by description) so that I can throw those in there. I’ll often sit down with my favourite games and just deconstruct their effects as a learning experience.
If I started creating every possible variation I’d never be able to stop!
What sort of game are you working on and what are some of the effects that would be in there? I have some time this weekend to play around so this could be a good exercise for me. Also great for expanding the practical side of this asset with an actual request from another developer.
Hmm … hard to describe what sorts of effects I’m looking for, as I’m actually fairly open at this point. But the game is a 3D adventure with characters in a realistic modern urban setting, with the ability to accept influences from science fiction and magic. So it’s not hyper realistic, but it’s also not low poly, anime, space battles, or heroic fantasy, etc.
While your art style is very appealing, I’m not quite sure how to match it with my game. I’d say the atom and hazy clouds, maybe, and possibly something else here or there, like maybe the molecule type graphic and the “glamour,” which could possibly be used as status indicators on a character (to show that they’ve been infected, or their mind is scrambled, or something like that).
I do have your VFX marked for my wish list. I’m just going to have to figure out some ways to use them.
Thank you! In a weird twist, I’m usually the programmer first, “sound/music guy” second, and artist/designer last if there’s no one else.
I think I have a rough idea of what you’re getting at. I totally understand that specific needs can be…well, specific
I’m always adding new content to this pack so maybe in the future it’ll have more of what you’re looking for, or for a different game.
A few of the newer prefabs I added are for “critical hits” and the like (just started on them in the last two hours).
Might want to rearrange your usefulness priority. Unless you are as good at programming and music as you are at fx, then I guess keep on coding. But those code bits aint as pretty.
It probably comes from a background where I’m used to being spread thin. Later on I started working in larger, more multi-disciplinary teams and so based on my experience I was assigned as the programmer.
For years I worked on game engines using (for the most part) OpenGL and C++ and nowadays I work full-time as a Unity game developer (where I’m mostly programming in C#). But I really love working with VFX when I have time! I was heavily into music production for some years, too, before dropping that entirely.
Full screen effects (fog, snow blizzard, wind, etc) that can be applied on a single quad over the screen and animated with uv scrolling or sprite sheet. Otherwise fill rate is an issue with full screen particles.
This is fantastic. I appreciate the example! And you’re absolutely right about the fill rate. Might be a good time to finish off an editor tool I’m working on to convert/bake Shuriken systems into spritesheets.
It’s already functional and does exactly what you’d need it to. I just need to get around to working on the key images for publishing on the asset store and take care of any minor bugs. Even then I’m still expecting to make major improvements to it after release through feedback from users (more robust features, and so on).
By the way, I love Grim Fandango! Played it many years ago.
That’s strange! The link in my signature and the original post were the same, but only the one in my signature followed through. Thanks for catching this. I think it’s fixed now.
I just got a chance to check it out. It’s a very neat tool! The coin party example and particle lighting was creative. It seems that on Unity 5 the particle system to spritesheet conversion doesn’t work right off a fresh import (although I didn’t bother tweaking anything). Even so, looking through the code the method used for conversion isn’t actually outdated and is somewhat similar to what I’m doing.
Once I have access to After Effects next month I’ll likely experiment between a few methods of rendering and animation within Unity for looping fullscreen particle sheets. I’ve got this weird idea I want to try where I animate something in Unity, render that out to a spritesheet or video, then modify it in AE, then take it back into Unity again.
On a more or less related note, I’ve also been working on a library of fire-based effects derived from UVFX using my spritesheet tool and I have some screens below.
That last one is a result of sillyness. I-- I regret nothing
Also seriously contemplating if I should release it as a freebie. You can see it already has 80+ prefabs (46 instances, and more in perpetual mode) built from UVFX, but using entirely new spritesheets and textures from the conversion tool. So it would be a different product entirely even though the core texture assets would be derived from UVFX.
Say I create some sort of effect using the assets (textures, spritesheets, scripts, etc.) in UVFX. I render that entire effect to a new spritesheet (bake the effect to a series of texture frames) using the tool I mentioned and then create an entirely new set of effects using that spritesheet. That’s what my VFX Fire Pack is!
The advantage to doing this is that I can create increasingly complex effects that have very little overdraw and low particle counts. Additionally, they’d be well suited for mobile apps where you’re better off having less than a few hundred live particles on screen (for the processor, at least) vs. ultra high end desktop rigs that won’t have much problem handling tens of thousands of particles blending over each other all over the screen.
Earlier, Manny made a great point about how fullscreen effects like fog and rain using particles generally kill performance since you have several large textures blending over each other and taking up massive chunks of the screen. In this case, the drawing of the particles further from the camera is still necessary to achieve depth as the entire system is transparent.
Baking effects to a single spritesheet and then rendering using a single quad has the advantage of alleviating some of this problem. And the challenge is getting a nice effect that loops well, but still retains that feeling of depth so it doesn’t look like a fullscreen quad slapped on top.
To really make it work, you might need some sort of simulated parallax with more than one quad. Another technique would be to have a shader that takes the depth from the camera and attenuates the transparency for parts of the fullscreen effect, making it look like it’s actually part of the scene in 3D.
